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arXiv:2308.07554

Rydberg-EIT of $^{85}$Rb vapor in a cell with Ne buffer gas

Nithiwadee Thaicharoen, Ryan Cardman, Georg A. Raithel

Published Aug 15, 2023• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of $^{85}$Rb atomic vapor in a glass cell that contains a 5-Torr neon buffer gas. At low probe power, EIT lines exhibit a positive frequency shift of about 70~MHz and a broadening of about 120~MHz, with minimal dependence on the principal quantum number of the Rydberg states. The EIT line shift arises from s-wave scattering between the Rydberg electron and the Ne atoms, which induces a positive shift near 190~MHz, and from the polarization of the Ne atoms within the Rydberg atom, which adds a negative shift near -120~MHz. The line broadening is largely due to the Ne polarization. Our experimental results are in good qualitative agreement with our theoretical model, in which the shift is linear in buffer-gas density. Our results suggest that Rydberg-EIT can serve as a direct spectroscopic probe for buffer-gas density at low pressure, and that it is suitable for non-invasive measurement of electric fields in low-pressure noble-gas discharge plasmas and in dusty plasmas.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2308.07554

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Motivated by an interest in measuring electric fields in low-pressure noble-gas discharge plasmas and in dusty plasmas via noninvasive Stark-effect spectroscopy, we investigate Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of 85Rb{}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atomic vapor in a glass cell that contains a 5-Torr neon buffer gas. We find that at low probe power the Ne\mathrm{Ne}Ne buffer gas induces a positive frequency shift of the Rydberg-EIT lines of about 70 MHz as well as a broadening of about 120 MHz, with minimal dependence on the principal quantum number of the Rydberg states. The EIT line shift predominantly is a sum of a positive term from sss-wave scattering between the Rydberg electron and the Ne\mathrm{Ne}Ne atoms, and a negative term from the polarization of the Ne\mathrm{Ne}Ne atoms within the Rydberg atom. The polarization shift is lesser in magnitude, resulting in the observed net positive shift. The line broadening is largely due to the Ne\mathrm{Ne}Ne polarization. Our experimental results are in good qualitative agreement with our theoretical model, in which the shift is linear in buffer-gas density. Our results suggest that Rydberg EIT is suitable for noninvasive measurement of electric fields in buffer-gas cells that sustain a plasma discharge, and that it can serve as a direct spectroscopic probe for buffer-gas density at low pressure.
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Abstract We have studied the phenomenon of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of 87 Rb vapor at room temperature in a magnetic field with an arbitrary angle to the laser propagation direction. Rather than exposing atoms to a parallelled or transverse magnetic field as usual, in our work, we apply a magnetic field (up to 45 Gauss) with an arbitrary angle to the laser propagation direction and the spectra become much more complex. More EIT dips are observed due to the Zeeman splitting on the D 2 line of 87 Rb in a Λ -type configuration. With a 5 Torr N 2 buffer gas in the thermal 2 cm vapor cell, the state 5 2 P 3 / 2 has a very short effective lifetime, corresponding to a large energy broadening, which removes the velocity selective optical pumping effect almost completely and keeps the high resolution EIT spectrum for the energy splitting of 87 Rb in magnetic fields. The shifting of the EIT resonances with the strength of the applied magnetic field coincides well with the theory based on a full matrix Hamiltonian combined with a spectral decomposition method. Our work can be extended to measure the magnetic field vector in space. The effects of the detuning of the probe and coupling beams on the spectral lines are also investigated.
We present a non-invasive spectroscopic technique to measure electric fields in plasma, leveraging large polarizabilities and Stark shifts of Rydberg atoms. Rydberg Stark shifts are measured with high precision using narrow-linewidth lasers via Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) of rubidium vapor seeded into a continuous, inductively coupled radio-frequency (rf) plasma in a few mTorr of argon gas. Without plasma, the Rydberg-EIT spectra exhibit rf modulation sidebands caused by electric- and magnetic-dipole transitions in the rf drive coil. With the plasma present, the rf modulation sidebands vanish due to screening of the rf drive field from the plasma interior. The lineshapes of the EIT spectra in the plasma reflect the plasma's Holtsmark microfield distribution, allowing us to determine plasma density and collisional line broadening over a range of pressures and rf drive powers. The work is expected to have applications in non-invasive spatio-temporal electric-field diagnostics of low-pressure plasma, plasma sheaths, process plasma and dusty plasma.
We perform spectroscopic measurements of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a strongly interacting Rydberg gas. We observe a significant spectral shift and attenuation of the transparency resonance due to the presence of interactions between Rydberg atoms. We characterize the attenuation as the result of an effective dephasing and show that the shift and the dephasing rate increase versus atomic density, probe Rabi frequency, and principal quantum number of Rydberg states. Moreover, we find that the spectral shift is reduced if the size of a Gaussian atomic cloud is increased and that the dephasing rate increases with the EIT pulse duration at large-parameter regimes. We simulate our experiment with a semianalytical model, which yields results in good agreement with our experimental data.
Three-color Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) of room-temperature Rb\mathrm{Rb}Rb vapor in the presence of inert gases (Ar\mathrm{Ar}Ar, Ne\mathrm{Ne}Ne, and N2{\mathrm{N}}_{2}N2​) at 50 and 500 mTorr is investigated. The observed EIT lines shift and develop blue-detuned satellite lines, dependent on inert-gas species and pressure. The separations of the satellite from the main EIT lines are approximately pressure-independent, while their strength increases with inert-gas pressure. The satellite lines are attributed to hyperfine collisions of the intermediate 5D3/25{D}_{3/2}5D3/2​ state. Further, analyzing the Stark effect of Rydberg levels, it is found that the inert gases suppress static electric fields in the vapor cells, which we induce by photoillumination of the cell walls with an auxiliary 453-nm laser. In the work, we utilize Rydberg levels with principal quantum numbers n=25n=25n=25 and 505050 and angular momenta $\ensuremath{\ell}=3$ up to 6, excited by the EIT lasers and optional radio-frequency dressing fields. The work is of interest in the spectroscopic study of mixed-species warm vapors, in sensing applications of Rydberg atoms in vapor cells, and in noninvasive electric-field diagnostics of low-pressure discharge plasma.